For lovers of French + diehard fans of all things québécois!

Five bucks a shot (#383)

Say this French verb out loud or in your head: pelter. It sounds like pelté, right? Good. Now say it seven more times:

pelter, pelter, pelter, pelter, pelter, pelter, pelter

OK. That verb means “to shovel (the snow)” in French. Except it’s not really spelled pelter. It’s spelled pelleter. (I thought the letter e in the middle might make you mispronounce the verb! Just two syllables: pel-ter.)

pelleter les marchesto shovel the steps

pelleter les marches en avant
to shovel the front steps

pelleter l’entrée
to shovel the driveway

In a scene from the TV series Les Parent, Louis tries to get at least one of his sons to agree to shovel the front steps this winter. The boys are sitting in front of the TV in the living room. Louis comes walking in and asks:

His sons are willing to do it — it’s easy money. Their father offers to pay them five dollars each time they do it. But that’s when the older son Olivier starts to negotiate with his father. (He’s a troublemaker.)

Olivier starts doing calculations, explanations, justifications, and he thinks he’s been smart enough to get more like twenty dollars out of his father. He’s proud of himself for being so cunning.

But not so quick — Olivier’s best friend then marches into the living room. The father decides to try his luck with Olivier’s best friend instead, who might turn out to be cheaper labour than his sons. He asks him:

You can learn about the conjugations of pelleter here. For speaking, don’t worry too much about this. Just learn to say these models: Je vais pelleter l’entrée. As-tu pelleté l’entrée?Je pelte l’entrée. I think that covers you for most shovelling situations!